By strangeguru

Posts 11203

First thing to get out of the way is that Bioshock Infinite is beautiful! Even those areas in the game that are bloody and gritty look gorgeous, Bioshock Infinite, the highly anticipated sequel to the popular Bioshock has finally fallen into my hands with the disc finally sliding into my PlayStation 3.

In this slight spin-off game (set before the events of the first Bioshock game) the player controls former Pinkerton Agent-Booker Dewitt (Who ISN'T a silent protagonist! Halleh-bloody-lujah!) who is tasked with one goal which becomes an overused yet poetic slogan: "Bring us the girl and wipe away the dept"

This sequel is far, far more different than the excellent first game and the terrible first sequel, seeing as how Booker doesn't follow the first two games and go down into a Bathysphere, he gets a bit bored and decides to flip the bird to Jack and Subject Delta whilst walking upstairs so that he can see if upstairs holds something more interesting, leading him into a rocket-like-pod-thing, leading to a bright, happy, floating city in the clouds, this city known as Columbia is different to Rapture in SO many different ways, first difference is that everything in Rapture already went downhill and you are just some speech-less dolt that decides to piece everything together because everyone else was too much of a violent drugee to fill him in, in Columbia however, everything is going along smoothly and you're just in time seeing as how in Columbia, everything is run by the Prophet Santa Clau- I mean Zachary Hale Comstock (Who hates Blacks, Asians and Irish no doubt!) who claims that you're the guy that's going to bugger everything up, so you must go through the land of highly religious sky-racists to perform your overused, poetic goal of Girl Bringing and Debt Wiping.

When it comes to gameplay it is very, very good!It is the first Bioshock game I have seen where guns are actually useful as opposed to shocking a person and hitting them with a wrench immediatlely killing them.The combat can be described in 3 words really: one-man-army. The shoot-outs are so overwhelming yet so rewarding that you really need a strategy, there are so many weapons and the super-ish powers known as Vigors (which are this game's Plasmids) that the game can be played pretty much however you like!You can play it safe and stay behind a wall with a sniper, using Charge to zip over to your enemies, purely assassinating them or you can cause havoc using the volley gun and RPG whilst throwing grenades of fire with Devils Kiss, my way to play was moving around everywhere with the Shotgun and Carbine whilst using Bucking Bronco to cast my enemies in the air!

One big highlight to the gameplay is Elizabeth, your partner that you are aiming to bring to New York unharmed, she is more than just "A character" that was placed to make the story interesting, as soon as Elizabeth is rescued, the game tells you that you don't need to look after her! She stays in cover and out of trouble, this is not an escort quest, but that's just the start of it, every now and then she tosses you items that you can use, such as ammo, health and Salts which act as a form of Vigor ammunition, plus, when she finds items, she is not a distraction, you press a button, she tosses them to you and then you get back into the game with no interruptions.The last thing she is useful for is tears, tears are this rips that can be opened by Elizabeth, bringing in something from one of the Infinite alternate universes, such as decoys, cover, friendly turrets and freight hooks.

And now for one of the best bits, the skyhook along with the skyline, at the start of the game, you get this saw-glove hybrid called the skyhook, this acts as your melee weapon, allowing you to pull off bloody executions by sawing of your enemies heads, throwing them off Columbia and breaking their necks!The skyhook is also your transport system, by jumping far distances and grabbing on to freight hooks and skylines, the skylines pull you along like some form of roller coaster, giving you the ability to circle around the area shooting some sons of guns and even dropping yourself on them with a skyline strike!

Despite all of this praise, there are a few flaws, pulling it away from the spot of "The Perfect Game"Firstly, I mentioned battles being overwhelming, this is far too true, if you are out in the open, you will get filled with lead in the space of 10 seconds, when you die, you lose money and your enemies get a health increase, sure a game needs punishments, but the game is far to harsh with the armed and dangerous S***storm that pummels you, I see people saying that Normal is too easy, they are wrong, many gamers will even see Easy as a challenge.

The next flaw is that some mechanics in the game, are so out of place with Columbia's world, Elizabeth does not always stay in cover, she mainly wonders around, but she has no health bar and enemies take no notice of her, in terms of gameplay she basically isn't there if you exclude her offering of health and ammo, I would have preferred the RESI 4 approach of "Could you hide in that bin for 60 mins or so?"The vigors are out of place too! In Bioshock, Plasmids are what caused the fall of Rapture, Vigors...are just there...To add to the difficulty spike, the good parts of the game, were two thirds of it, the middle was full of repetitive fillers, I'm on about when you are headed to Comstock House, I was stuck in this Limbo of:1. Get locked in a square battlefield and kill everyone.2. Walk through this linear area where Booker and Elizabeth talk to each other.Final Problem is that even in the free roaming areas, Columbia was far too linear, it felt like I was walking through a film set than an extravagant city...

Reguardless, this doesn't mean that the game should be avoided, the game is still a must own, it is artistic, it is fun for most of the time and that ending (as complex as it was) just got me...